LibriVox recording of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne.

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is a 1624 prose work by the English writer John Donne. It is a series of reflections that were written as Donne recovered from a serious illness, believed to be either typhus or relapsing fever. (Donne does not clearly identify the disease in his text.) The work consists of twenty-three parts describing each stage of the sickness. Each part is further divided into a Meditation, an Expostulation, and a Prayer.

The seventeenth meditation is perhaps the best-known part of the work. It contains the following passage:
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
(Summary by Wikipedia)

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This audio is part of the collection: The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection
It also belongs to collections: Audio Books & Poetry; Community Audio

Artist/Composer: John Donne
Date: 2009-05-08
Source: Librivox recording of a public-domain text
Keywords: librivox; literature; audiobook; religion; meditations; prayers; illness

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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